Sorry for the Hiatus!

Warning: Be prepared. It's been over a week since I last posted so this blog is a mini-book!

It's amazing how easy it is to get lost in the middle of a project while trying to live. Since my last post over a week ago, we have been busy trying to set up house and home and getting the "garage" ready to use all to no avail due to being sick, dealing with a sick child and dealing with my inherited kitty cat who was injured in a cat fight. We had a goal of having the house ready so we could unload the storage unit by the end of February. After all, a month should be plenty of time to set up a home, right?

Well, obviously not here since we are at the last day of February! In my last post I think I mentioned that I bought a cabinet to put all the food in and finally got it all set up. The kids had a teacher workday and it snowed on Monday of last week so we had a snow day for all of us! It was just a little bit of snow, but we were able to scrape enough snow off the top layer that had settled on my car (leaving the dirty underlayer attached to the car) and made snow cream. We usually have at least one good snow per winter and always make snow cream when this happens. We really thought since February was winding down that we would not have the chance to enjoy it this winter, but we were thanking God for the blessing that day! The next day, my hubby came home not feeling well. The kids and I had gone to the high school to meet the staff and get more information to help my oldest daughter register for the fall. Eeeeek, she's going to high school in the fall!!!! Wednesday night we had to go to the new Career and Technical Education Center where they provide classes for high school students to get a jump start into their careers. Due to having to go out two nights in a row all while my hubby and I both being down with this virus, I didn't get much done around the house last week except for the regular upkeep of living. It has been over a week and we are both not feeling back to 100% yet, although I started getting tired of it over the weekend and decided to push through to hang some mini-blinds on Monday.

Before I get to the mini-blinds, though, I'll share my lack of getting anything done over the weekend. Friday into Saturday morning, my hubby and I woke up around 1:30a to a cat fight only to find our cat had been injured. We finally fell back to sleep only to be awoken by our son about 2:30a in the bathroom throwing up. I ended up on the couch with him while he ran back and forth until about 5:30a when he wanted to go back to his bed. From there he continued to run back and forth to the bathroom all morning. I dozed off and on until we all finally got up around 7:30a. That was a rough night and I was thankful that I had went to sleep around 9:30p Friday. By 11:00a, my son was feeling better so he and his sisters went to their grandmother's house in Raleigh. She had planned to take them all and when the boy got sick, we revised the plan to only bring the girls, and revised the plan again when the boy was feeling better. We were a little concerned but by 4:30p when we met at the half-way point between here and there, the boy was all better!

My hubby and I didn't get a lot done over the weekend, but he did manage to install our new dishwasher including reworking the plumbing for it and installing the new basket in the sink. Now we have a fully functional kitchen sans the kitchen cabinets that we will eventually get replaced. Right now we need to get our storage unit cleaned out so we can save that rental fee every month. Anyway, my hubby and I rented a movie on Saturday night and bought some ice cream at the store. We then got up Sunday, went to church, stopped at Lowes to pick up a few more plumbing parts for him to finish the plumbing for the dishwasher and then went out to eat for lunch. That was our big date and it was great!

As I said before, by the end of the weekend, I was getting tired of this virus and pushed through so on Monday, I managed to spend only (sarcasm alert!) about four hours hanging two mini blinds. I spent over two hours on the first one including the time I spent looking for the drill bits that were sitting right in front of me in my hubby's tool box ! It wasn't until I called him after about fifteen minutes of searching that he pointed me right to them where they were hiding in plain sight. After I finally got one blind hung, it was almost time to go get the kids from school, so I went outside to pet and love on the cat and feed her since we can't leave her food out lest the other cat be drawn to our yard and attack her again trying to steal her food. Once I got back from getting the kids, I set to work putting up the other mini blind confident that I would get it hung in less than thirty minutes since I now knew the mistakes I made hanging the first one and was sure that I wouldn't have any problems with the next one. On the first one, I had drilled the holes and hung the brackets only to find I had forgotten to allow the extra clearance for the edge of each of the brackets, and I knew I had measured well (full of sarcasm today!). So after about an hour and a half plus a little extra time for climbing up and down the ladder to go check on the kids and make sure they were actually doing their homework I was finally finished hanging the second blind. I allowed for extra clearance this time, but I oriented the brackets incorrectly.

I felt completely stupid by the time I finished hanging the second set of blinds, and I was beginning to get a headache. I had a bunch of meat in the refrigerator I bought the night before that needed to be repackaged for freezing since I buy in bulk because there are five of us, and they all eat as much as an army. So my oldest daughter helped me open all the bags to put the meat in and then I cooked supper and we ate. By the time we finished eating, I was about to pass out and fell asleep early (by 9p). I rarely fall asleep that early, so I knew this virus had gotten the best of me.

Now I am at the point that I need to finish the "garage". In order to do so, I need to hang the vertical blinds for the sliding glass door. The "garage" is the space at the back of our house that used to be a detached garage but was finished in along with the old carport and breezeway to complete an addition to the house. It will be really nice when we get it finished, but since we do not smoke, and the previous owner smoked like a freight-train back there (so we heard), it smells very strongly of cigarette smoke and gives me a headache if I am out there very long. I cannot work out there until I get the old curtain over the sliding door pulled down, but I cannot pull that down until I can put up the vertical blind. I cannot put up the vertical blind because I am so short that I cannot support the blind and put it up all by myself. So as you can see, I am in a bit of a pickle. My hubby will have to help me with it, and he agreed to do so, but with neither of us feeling better, it just isn't going to happen until this weekend probably!

In addition to needing to get the "garage" ready to empty the storage unit, it also needs to be set up so my hubby can put the table saw together. We need it in order to fix the bottom of my closet. There is a built-in shoe rack that needs to be removed, but cannot be until I have a board to put down since it is open to the crawl space underneath it. The board on the top of the built-in shoe rack is angled, so it will be too wide to lay down there, hence the need for the saw to rip the board to the correct width. Until I am able to get out there to the "garage" I have to figure out something else to do. So I was thinking about it while writing my other blog, Balanced in His Grace yesterday. At lunchtime, my hubby came home and we met with the tree people who gave us a quote to get rid of or trim back some dangerous trees in our yard. We now have to figure out what to do with them. I think we need to get rid of them, and I think my hubby does, too, but since one of them is actually partly on the neighbor's actual property, I think we need to get his permission and see if he would like to contribute to the cost. We also need to ask him to take out a section of his fence that butts up next to the tree.

So after my hubby left, I started unloading the DVDs, books and cookbooks because my hubby helped me find the shelves for our little DVD shelf and also the pins to hold the shelves of the bookcases of the entertainment center where I keep the books. I put together our standing lamp, mopped the living room floor and put the rocking chair in there. It had been sitting beside the steps to the dining room since we moved in. Today I plan to unroll the rug in the living to complete the ensemble.

My hubby commented last night while sitting there watching TV that it sure does look nice not having all of the boxes sitting around in the living room. Yep, it sure does, and the rug will make it look even better! I now intend to go get some decent looking shelves to hold all of our cleaners, towels, washcloths and the like until we get all of the closets prepared to use. I am planning to paint the inside of the closets with some primer that will kill the smell, so I cannot use them until I get them painted and it dries. I cannot paint the closets until I get the shoe rack disabled, caulk in the crevices to seal out the odor of the crawl space and the like, which all goes back to the "garage". So the shelves to hold all of this stuff will help get us a home that is at least somewhat liveable while we do all of these projects. It feels good to have a plan, but I know that will change as I come across more issues in this dump that I now call home. My only hope: this dump is slowly looking better, and I know it will be great when we get done.

Happy Home Improvement!